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Marquette non-tenure-track faculty want union bargaining rights

School administration cites National Labor Relations Board religious exemption

By Nick Rommel | November 15, 2024

For five years, Grant Gosizk has taught Marquette University undergrads to think about how literature and pop culture shape attitudes toward addiction.

Non-tenure-track, or NTT, faculty like Gosizk teach many of Marquette’s core curriculum classes. Every year, individual instructors sign new 10-month contracts with the university, earning $43,000 a year. Gosizk calls the arrangement “precarious.”

“I struggle to pay rent, I struggle to take care of aging family members and take care of my family,” the English teaching assistant professor said.

Now, Marquette’s local chapter of the United Campus Workers, or UCW, wants to win collective bargaining rights for NTTs in its Klingler College of Arts and Sciences.

But Catholic Jesuit schools like Marquette have a religious exemption from National Labor Relations Board jurisdiction. This means to have a union election, NTTs need a signed agreement with school leadership.

Read the complete story at WPR